


Dreams of Spring

by greyathena



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-27
Updated: 2019-06-03
Packaged: 2020-03-20 12:57:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18993115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greyathena/pseuds/greyathena
Summary: Tyrion finds life in the rubble, and the story goes on.(Rating may change)





	1. What Happened

**Author's Note:**

> Because I, like so many, find it just bad storytelling and bad choices to finish the story any which way just to get it done so the showrunners can go off and do the next thing. Because when a story goes so far before ending in a nonsensical way, we are entitled to feel like it was just wrong. And because those things being true, I legitimately believed 100% that this was what was going to happen. I didn't think there was any way so much storytelling time had been wasted on a story of redemptive love that would just turn false in the last second.
> 
> So here is my version, in appreciation for all the other fans.

In the end he took Ser Davos with him, in case - if - if - if, he would need help.

Neither of them spoke once they were inside what used to be the tunnels and crypts of the keep. Away in the distance was still shouting, sobbing, the sounds of horses and the occasional sword swinging in the coup de grâce, but it came through a haze. In here was nothing but the loud of silence, dust in their eyes and noses, and bricks sliding under their feet.

The passage was blocked. Tyrion turned away from it to weep, feeling the dust in his eyes thicken with the welling of tears. And there - there - something moved.

"Ser Davos," he hissed, his tongue thick. "There. Something moved. There."

It was a feeble movement, the shifting of bricks. Tyrion ran, his feet slipping in the debris, but the older man with the longer legs got there first, just as a brick slid and fell down its pile. 

Revealing the still white face of Tyrion's sister. Davos put fingertips to her neck; looked back at Tyrion and shook his head. "She didn't move."

Tyrion put that aside for later. Cersei couldn't have lived anyway; finding her alive now would only be making her fuel for dragonfire. She wasn't a person who could go away quietly.

There was still movement though, and like a madman, tearing his hands on the jagged bricks, Tyrion dug until they could both see that Jaime was there, that his chest was heaving in ragged breaths, his mouth open and gasping although his eyes were shut.

"Jaime," Tyrion whispered, bending close. "Jaime!" There was no response, but he breathed. Blood had caked around his temple and there was an ugly bruise on the other cheekbone. Davos was still digging, pulling the bricks from Jaime's body. 

"Blood," he reported tersely. "Can't tell if it's his or hers. He seems sound, though. Don't see anything badly broken."

Jaime's head rolled, his face twisted. "He needs a maester," Tyrion said; then repeated in horror, "He needs a maester." The Unsullied were butchering Lannister foot soldiers on the streets; innocent men who'd never even taken up sword against Daenerys. Where would they get help for Jaime Lannister?

"Give me a minute," Davos said, pushing himself to his feet. "Get him out of his coat."

It was a struggle, but Tyrion asked no questions and persevered. It required unstrapping Jaime's golden hand, which after a moment Tyrion threw to the floor and kicked a few bricks over it. Now, as he rolled Jaime to drag the garment off him, he could see the slashes in his tunic, the fresh blood. He'd been stabbed. A sob forced its way from Tyrion's throat but he kept working.

At the sound of footsteps he froze, ready to cover Jaime's and Cersei's faces with the coat and declare them both dead, but it was Ser Davos returning with the hauberk and the ragged and bloody surcoat of a Knight of the Vale. 

"Where did you get that?" Tyrion asked.

"Off someone who no longer needed it." 

Davos lifted Jaime's head and shoulders while Tyrion forced the mail and then the blue coat with the swooping falcon onto his brother's body. Maybe no one would notice the breeches were wrong.

Jaime moaned, and Davos said, "We need a litter."

"I can't -" Tyrion tried to picture himself carrying a litter with a person of average height at the other end, bearing a man of Jaime's size, and he choked on the brick dust in his throat.

"I'll drag it, they'd be suspicious of you carrying it anyway." Davos gently lowered Jaime back onto the pile of rubble. "Go down by the Fishmarket, the least damage was done there. Find an empty house, a good one. Anyone with a boat will have fled days ago. Light the fireplace. I'll meet you there."

Tyrion hesitated, looking at Jaime's battered face, and Davos said, "Go! If you want to save him - go, quickly."

Tyrion turned and ran.

In the streets he made himself wander aimlessly; the Queen's Hand again, surveying the city. Blackened bodies here. Dead children there. Sprays of blood. Bodies that were not Jaime.

The old smuggler had been correct - River Row was largely untouched, the homes of the most prosperous fishermen and shipwrights left standing empty. Daenerys had had little interest in the Mud Gate, the empty stalls. Some houses still even had glass in the windows. He chose one of them, to keep out the dust. 

There were logs in the scuttle and a flint on the hearth. Too easy. The fire lit, he wandered upstairs and found the bedrooms. Three on the first floor, and still more stairs leading above. A successful man had fled this house.

In one of the bedrooms Tyrion stripped the quilt from the bed and gathered whatever came into his mind: clean rags from a press he found, jugs of wine and water from the kitchen on the ground floor, needle and thread from a lady's sewing box in the parlor. The water was scummy but it would have to do until they found the well. 

Noise from the ground floor drew his attention and he hurried down the stairs as silently as possible. Davos, dragging a litter behind him.

"Is he still alive?" Tyrion whispered.

"Still moving." Davos muscled the litter into the house and barred the door. "Anywhere to put him?"

"Upstairs," Tyrion said, wincing. "Bedrooms in good condition, but. . ." How were they going to get him there?

"All right. I'm not out of ideas yet." Davos wiped the back of his hand across his forehead, leaving a sweaty streak in the dust. "Boil wine while I'm gone. Do what you can to get his shirt off and clean the wounds. I'm more worried about his head, but bleeding to death won't help him."

"Where are you going?"

"To find a maester in the prisoners' camp who wants to keep his life."

Momentarily distracted from his brother's plight, Tyrion said, "Surely they won't execute maesters. It's a waste."

Davos gave a grim wave of his hand that seemed to encompass the house, the street, the port, the Street of Steel, the markets, the bodies in the streets, the burning ships, the surrendered prisoners with their throats cut. "I'll be back," he said. "Bar the door. Get him into the kitchen and hide him. If anyone comes, say you've chosen this house to set up your base of operations."

Dragging Jaime was hard going, but Tyrion managed it. The smoke from the fireplace might blend in with the haze of ash and dust over the city, and perhaps Davos had only found the house because he was looking for it, but that didn't mean no one else had eyes. The cover story was a good one but Tyrion wasn't foolish enough to believe he had the queen's full trust.

Jaime was still breathing, but only the occasional pained moan or twist of his neck suggested he might be semi-conscious as Tyrion cut the clothes from him and sponged away the worst of the dust. When the boiled wine made contact with the wound in his side, though, Jaime cried out and tears leaked from his eyes.

"I'm sorry," Tyrion whispered close to his brother's ear. "Jaime? Are you awake?"

Jaime's left hand fumbled and grasped at Tyrion's coat. He shook his head a little, then gasped with pain.

"You're safe," Tyrion whispered. "You're not there anymore. We're going to help you, you'll be all right."

Jaime's eyes opened, wild and bloodshot, rolling in all directions. "Cersei?" he gasped.

For a moment Tyrion considered lying, but he shook his head. "Dead when we found her."

"The roof," Jaime said, the tears coming again. "The tunnel was blocked -"

"I know. I know." Hesitantly, Tyrion reached for the kettle of boiled wine again. "You have to let me help you. You've been wounded - stabbed -"

"Greyjoy," Jaime said through his teeth. "He's dead. I think."

"Good." Tyrion poured the wine over Jaime's wounds again and tried not to look at his brother's face until the stifled cries had died down. "I'm sorry," Tyrion said again. "Ser Davos is bringing a maester, I hope he'll have milk of the poppy."

"No," Jaime gasped, "no, I won't -"

"You will. You're somewhere safe, we can keep you hidden, and Davos can be trusted. Without it you won't rest."

"I -" Jaime's hand gripped Tyrion's arm painfully. "How bad is it? The city - how -"

"It's bad," Tyrion admitted, sharing for a moment the lead weight in his heart. "She burned it. She killed thousands. There's little left, and most of the people are ash. She - I thought she -" He wept for a moment and Jaime said nothing, because Jaime had fallen unconscious again.

It was over an hour, the afternoon light - what little there was - beginning to dim, before Davos returned. The maester he'd brought was fairly young and shaking with shock and nerves, the links of his single chain bent and broken, blood on his cheek. But when he saw Jaime on the kitchen floor, his eyes cleared.

"All right," he said. "My lord, help me carry him to the bed."

Davos turned to Tyrion. "You have to go," he said. "Maester Naven will care for him, but you have to go to the queen and play your part. Don't make her look for you."

Much as Tyrion hated to leave his brother, he saw the wisdom in that. To shield Jaime, he had to appear to be Daenerys's loyal Hand. 

He stood on the steps of the Red Keep listening to her promise the rest of the world the same "mercy" she'd brought to King's Landing, and when she accused him of freeing his brother he said, "I _used_ my brother, Your Grace. I sent him to make sure the city surrendered. Only he could have gotten inside. And they did surrender, and -" He swallowed the words _and you killed them all anyway_. "Not a one of your Unsullied, your Dothraki, died in this conquest. Your people faced no resistance."

He could see that she did not trust him, that his days as her Hand were certainly numbered if not the days of his life, but for now it was enough. She would do nothing in this moment, her victory moment, as long as he smiled and simpered and kept the Hand's emblem on his chest. Gods help them all now, if Jon Snow would not.


	2. Reunion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone else needs to see Jaime.

**Tyrion**

When he returned, long after nightfall, to the house in River Row, the maester was sitting by Jaime's bedside. Jaime was asleep, or unconscious again, the candlelight flickering on the bruises on his face in a ghastly way.

"I have stitched his wounds," the maester said. "They were deep - a long knife, perhaps, or a dagger - but not from a sword. It's possible the major organs are not affected. When he wakes, give him a little water if he will take it. We'll know in time if the kidneys are damaged. But he's fortunate, in that way, that he was immobilized for a time. The bleeding had slowed."

"And his head?" Tyrion asked. 

"It's promising that he spoke to you, and was lucid. I cannot say how severe the injury may be. If he wakes again, he will probably live. Even so, he may not be right."

"Who among us is?" Tyrion muttered. He gave a short bow to the maester. "I thank you. Have you been given rooms?"

"Yes, on the upper floor. Ser Davos says I am to remain in this house."

"For your own safety, as well as his. The queen - Queen Daenerys is dead. Killed by the former Hand to Queen Cersei." Or rather, by Arya Stark wearing Qyburn's face in a performance the memory of which still made Tyrion slightly sick, but no one knew that but himself, Arya, and Jon Snow. Aegon Targaryen. Whoever in the seven hells he was now. "The foreign warriors, they are - they cannot be contained. Most of the prisoners will not last." Tyrion forced down yet another stab of disgusted guilt. "You may go to your rest. I will sit with him."

As the maester departed, Tyrion took his place in the chair beside the bed. Jaime looked every year of his age but still so handsome beneath the bruises, every bit the Lion of Lannister. Every bit Tywin's heir. Yet where Tywin was ruthless, Jaime only pretended to be. He lay here half dead because he had followed some higher demand, instead of allowing himself to be happy in the North. Instead of marrying his woman and quietly pleasing Lady Sansa, making no waves, jettisoning his sister with the past and waiting for the victorious Dragon Queen to return Casterly Rock to his family. It was what Tywin would have done. All for what he wanted and his future. Not a second spared for anything that would drag him down.

Tyrion sat and watched his brother, and thought. Snow had decided to call a council of the noble houses, allegedly to determine who should sit the throne but really to solicit help in dealing with the rampant Unsullied and Dothraki. Their queen had been killed and they wanted to pillage and burn. Telling them Snow was her blood, her true heir, would only cast suspicion on him the way tempers were blazing. Nothing was settled, and until it was, Jaime wasn't safe. Enough of the players would gladly cut his throat.

 _Lady Sansa_. Yes. She was the answer. Or her sworn sword was, if Brienne of Tarth didn't run Jaime through on sight herself.

The little house on River Row was about to become the embassy of the North.

 

**Brienne**

The voyage south took only days, but it felt like weeks. She both desperately needed and dreaded to arrive in the capital and find out the one bit of news that had not been mentioned by any of the ravens that flocked to Winterfell. The city was destroyed. Thousands dead, tens of thousands. Cersei, dead. Daenerys, dead. Grieved and angry troops running rampant. The King in the North, with the help of Ser Davos Seaworth and Tyrion Lannister, trying to hold everything together but begging the noble houses to come to his aid. Nothing, nothing about Jaime.

Even Tyrion, who wrote to bid Sansa to sail directly to the Blackwater Rush and disembark at the Mud Gate, said nothing about his brother. Perhaps Jaime had never arrived? Perhaps he had joined his brother and no one felt the need to mention it? Or perhaps he had died in dragonfire, executed as a traitor for trying to save his sister. Or been cut down by the same Unsullied at whose sides he'd fought the dead. Or been crushed by the crumbling city walls. Or been murdered by his angry sister, or torn apart by the Mountain.

Sansa decided to trust Tyrion's instructions, since Jon had mentioned that the former Hand was assisting him in trying to prevent chaos from breaking out, so they did sail around the city and dock near the fish market instead of coming ashore near the Red Keep. As far as they could see, everything was deserted. The docks should have smelled of fish but instead they were caked with the same dust and ash that still drifted in a cloud over the city. No one awaited them but Tyrion, Ser Davos, and two guards.

"My Lady," Tyrion said as Sansa walked down the gangplank with Brienne and Podrick close behind. "I thought it best you avoid the camps. It would not be safe there for a lady, not with - with everything that's been happening."

"I grieve for the loss of the queen," Sansa said, her voice even.

"As do we all," Tyrion replied. "But we must all do our best to return to order. I've found a house, empty and undamaged, far from the camps and the pyres. If it pleases you, you might settle your household comfortably there while you are in the city."

Sansa paused only a moment before nodding to her men still on the ship. 

"Ser Davos will stay behind and show your men where to bring your things," Tyrion said. "If you would follow me."

As they walked through the deserted gate, Sansa said quietly, "I suppose there are plenty of _little birds_ roosting about this house?"

Tyrion placed a hand to his heart. "Lady Sansa, I am crushed by your lack of trust. In point of fact - I do have a favor to beg. But I ask you to take this house not so that I may spy on you and your retinue, I swear it. I have a very different reason."

He glanced over his shoulder at Brienne and Pod, and Brienne felt her heart leap into her throat.

"I have installed in this house," Tyrion continued, barely audible, "someone - very dear to me. He is cared for, and need not be any trouble. I ask only that you conceal him, keep the house secure, and tell no one of his presence. Or existence. No one would suspect he is with you. There is nowhere else safe, not yet."

Brienne was wildly hopeful for a moment, until reality set in. Who was Tyrion most likely to be talking about in this way? The answer was obvious. He had smuggled Cersei's child out of the Keep.

The child - Jaime's last secret sin, confessed to her not in an intimate moment but before the battle, when they were standing in the frozen plain outside Winterfell waiting for the armies of the dead. He'd wanted her to know the whole, before the end. That he'd left his child to try to save it, not just because of his oaths. 

"But because of those too," she'd said, secure that she knew who he was.

It was later, in her bed, that he confessed the rest. About Ellaria and her daughter, about drowning his disgust in, ironically, Dornish red, about Cersei coming to him and not being able to stop her. His tone had been bitter, disgusted. 

And yet, he'd left.

The Greyjoy fleet had raided Daenerys's ships - how many months ago? At least ten? Yes, the child could have been born. And left as undefended as Elia's children at a critical moment, with the city under attack.

The house Tyrion brought them to was narrow but tall, in the manner of the merchant district. Two more guards stood outside. Inside they were greeted by a young man with the chain of a maester, who nodded at Tyrion and then stepped back into the shadows.

"Follow me, please," Tyrion said, and started up the stairs. When he had reached the landing and was satisfied that Sansa, Brienne, and Podrick - and no one else - had all followed him, he knocked lightly on a door, waited a breath, and then pushed it open.

Brienne followed her lady inside, braced for anything. Or so she thought. Because when she saw that the room contained a grown person's bed, and that the man on it was Jaime, she had to fight to school her expression.

His eyes were closed, but he breathed. There were bandages on his head and yellowing bruises on his face; anything else was concealed by the blankets draped over him. But he was alive.

Sansa was silent for a moment. Finally she said, "He left the North without leave. What did he do when he arrived here?"

"He tried to get Cersei to surrender," Tyrion said. "He went into the city to try to save lives. Instead, when the city surrendered and Cersei's men laid down their swords, Daenerys slaughtered them anyway. Jaime killed Euron Greyjoy but was wounded in the fight, then he was caught in the collapse of the Red Keep."

"Cersei died in the collapse of the Red Keep," Sansa said, asking the question Brienne both did and did not want the answer to.

"I begged him to try to save her," Tyrion confessed. "To get her out, for the sake of the child. I believe he tried. She died and he was spared."

"Where is the child?" Brienne asked. Her voice came out hoarse, strangled.

"I'm not sure there ever was one," Tyrion said, very softly. "It's been months and she looked - but it's moot now. If there was a child it died in her belly."

"Do you think the new king will pardon him?" Sansa asked. "Whoever it may be?"

Tyrion shrugged. "In the end, his crime is . . . entering the city. He didn't succeed in much else, except for killing a pirate who usurped Yara Greyjoy's throne. We can't say he attempted treason when it's not clear _who_ was, or was supposed to be, queen at the time."

"We will shelter him," Sansa said after a pause. "Protect, and conceal him while he recovers."

"Thank you, my lady," Tyrion said. "He is - he can't get up yet, but his mind is sound. I believe he will make it, and then . . . we will see what happens next."

"We have more to discuss," she said, and made to leave the little bedroom. As she went, she said to Brienne, "Stay. If you like."

Unable to form words, Brienne nodded and watched them leave - Pod throwing her a sympathetic look over his shoulder as he went. When they were gone she went and sat down on the chair pulled close to the bed. Tyrion, or someone else, had clearly been sitting here keeping watch.

She waited a long while, her eyes just skimming and skimming over his features, but eventually Jaime stirred. His eyes blinked open very slowly, and he focused on the ceiling for a moment before he noticed her. 

He said nothing, but she saw him swallow. Then he nodded. "You're here," he said.

"Your brother brought us. Lady Sansa is going to stay in the house, to - provide a cover for you."

"I'm sorry," he said, and her mind flashed to another time. _I'm apologizing._ He sounded no less bitter now. "I couldn't -"

"I know," she said. She'd considered every possible reason, any possible way he could have ended that sentence, and she understood them all. Hated most of them, but understood them.

"To be safe up north when I was just as responsible -"

"You weren't," she said, still calm. Holding herself still. "But I understand that you thought so."

"I'm _sorry_. Brienne, I'm -"

"I know." She licked her lips, tried her best to be sincere. "I'm sorry. For your sister."

A look of impatience came over Jaime's face, and she could see that he was about to try to rise.

"Don't," she said, a hand on his chest. "They said you shouldn't."

"Will you forgive me?" he asked, as he fell back onto the pillows. "I'm not - asking for that now, I know it's too much. I'm asking if you will someday."

"I imagine I will," she said. But forgiveness was not the same as - as believing that he might want to resume things. As believing that he had feelings for her. Forgiveness didn't fix everything.

He nodded, and she could see a dull, unfocused quality come over his eyes. He'd only shaken off sleep for a short time. They must be dosing him with milk of the poppy to keep him still.

"You should rest," she said. "I'll come back."

"Promise me," he said, but he was already half asleep. Brienne fled to be alone, because readjusting her entire emotional state was going to take more than a moment.

 

**Jaime**

This time when he woke, Podrick Payne was in the chair by his bedside. The boy flashed him a friendly but sort of blank smile and asked, "Shall I get my lady?"

"Yes, if she will," Jaime answered. He was going to be cap in hand with her for a while, long after she said she'd forgiven him. If she ever did. He was in no place to be making demands.

It was when Brienne came in, a candle in her hands, that he realized how late it must be. "It's night?" he asked.

She nodded as she set the candle beside his bed.

"Did I wake you? Or, Pod -"

"No. I was - I hadn't gone to bed."

She'd been waiting. He was in horrible danger of crying again.

"Are you in pain?" she asked. His face must have been a picture. "You can have some of this . . ." There was a small covered pitcher in her other hand.

"No more milk of the poppy," he said. His head ached and his wounds pained him, but he didn't want to drift in and out of miserable consciousness anymore. Not now that she was here.

"It's not, it's rum." She took a sip straight from the pitcher to prove it. "We found it in the kitchen. Might take a bit of the edge off without knocking you out. The maester said a bit was all right."

"A bit then."

She poured a splash into his water cup and helped him sip it. It was good, smooth and sweet. He should have spent more time in River Row.

"Brienne," he said, when he'd swallowed another sip.

"Jaime."

"I'm sorry."

"I know that you are. It's truly all right to stop saying so."

"It's not an apology, it's - a fact. I need you to know. That I hated hurting you."

"All right." She set the cup on the table. He reached for her, his hand on the side of her face. The way she'd held him when he was leaving, or would have been if he'd had two hands.

"I didn't want to leave," he insisted.

"Jaime -" She took a deep breath and started again. "What I need to know is -"

"Will you stay with me? Please?" She looked confused, so he added, "In this room. Will you please - like it was." 

She hesitated, then said, "Is it - because she's gone?"

"I chose you," he said. His arm trembled with weakness and he let it fall to the bed. "When I came north. When I came - to your room. I didn't - I didn't go back to her for that. If she were here now I would choose you."

She didn't look quite as if she believed him, but she gave a little nod. "If you want me to . . ."

"I would be near you."

"All right." After a pause, she reached out and took his hand, rubbing her thumb over it as she tucked his arm under the blankets. "I'll be back."

He closed his eyes as she left, and opened them some minutes later when he heard the door open again. Brienne was creeping across the room as quietly as a woman her size in heavy boots could, spreading a bedroll on the floor.

"Will you not lie with me?" he asked. The note in his voice was plaintive. It was well enough - he'd made her vulnerable, made her beg. He could beg now.

Brienne faltered. "You're injured."

"There's room." There was, they'd tucked him into the side nearest the chair for easier access for cleaning his wounds. It was a big enough bed.

"All - all right." She put down the bedroll, and after a brief hesitation unstrapped the sword belt from around her waist and began unlacing her gambeson. Out of what felt like a necessary courtesy he closed his eyes again while she undressed and crawled into bed beside him.

It all felt wrong - even though she was here beside him, even despite her tenderness - a reunion between them should have been tearful kisses and shouting in equal measure, not this polite awkwardness. "Will you kiss me?" he blurted. "You can say no." When she didn't respond, he added, "I didn't kiss her. If it matters. I haven't kissed anyone but you since I rode north. I haven't wanted to kiss anyone but you in so long."

The mattress shifted and she was leaning over him - but only to snuff the candle and the bedside lamp. But then her lips touched his - lightly, but not dry and polite. It was a true kiss, her lips caressing his in a way that at least told him he hadn't killed whatever she'd felt for him.

"Go to sleep, Jaime," she said firmly, and he did.


	3. The Plot Thickens

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the reunion, you have to navigate the rest.

**Jaime**

He wasn't even aware he was awake until he felt the bed shift, and Brienne's hand on his forehead.

"You're clammy," she said, her voice quiet and morning-rough. "Do your wounds feel warm? More painful?"

He was - he was both hot _and_ cold. That couldn't be right. He tried to shrug.

"I'm getting the maester."

Before he could ask her not to go she was up and getting into her clothes. The room was dim but faint light was coming through the shutters. Morning, then. At least he'd slept a normal night.

He closed his eyes and must have dozed. When he was next aware of his surroundings, the maester was bending over him.

"Sorry to wake you," the man said pleasantly. "But I suppose it's as good a time as any to change your bandages, since it seems I should have a look at those stitches."

Jaime was too tired and confused to protest. Brienne was there again, slipping around the maester to the bedside, helping Jaime to sit up slightly on his pillows so that they could lift his shirt.

He winced as the bandages were peeled off. The maester looked closely, fingers pressing here and there, and neither he nor Brienne said anything at all. That seemed ominous.

"Shall I have them boil wine?" Brienne finally asked. Jaime's stomach lurched. 

"Your lad," the maester said, and he turned over his shoulder and suddenly Podrick was there in the doorway. "There he is. Will you go and have some wine boiled? These wounds need to be cleaned again." Podrick disappeared with a quick nod, and the maester returned his attention to Jaime. "The skin is perhaps only a bit inflamed. We'll clean them and hope for the best - and I think some willow bark tea, as well. No need to worry."

He _was_ worrying, but at least they weren't talking about cutting the stitches open. He'd seen that done to men after battles, when the wounds turned putrid. By then it didn't usually help.

"I should have asked for some cool water and clean cloths, as well," the maester said. "My lady -"

Brienne didn't correct him. "I'll go." Her arm was slowly gone from Jaime's back, letting him sink down again. 

"There we are." Efficient hands stripped away the last of the old bandaging. The maester turned to watch the door close behind Brienne's departing form. "Better now, eh?" he said. "You'll be easier now your wife is here."

Jaime wondered if someone had told him that, to preserve her honor, or if he'd just assumed. Or if he hadn't assumed at all but was being polite. In any case Jaime wasn't going to enlighten him.

"The lad isn't yours, is he?"

_Podrick_? Jaime almost grinned. "No," he said.

"Didn't think so. Doesn't much have the look of you."

For a moment Jaime entertained the question of what woman of his acquaintance could possibly have borne him a son who looked like Podrick Payne. Certainly not Lysa Tully; all their sons would have been flaming redheads. Was it a rude awakening, the truth that he easily could have a son Pod's age by now? Of course Brienne couldn't have been more than a girl of ten when he was born. _She_ wasn't getting old.

"He's her squire," he said aloud.

"Her . . . ?"

"He's the lady's squire. She's a knight, you know."

"Is she." The maester hummed noncommittally. "Interesting days."

"Indeed."

The door creaked open on Brienne with a dish of water and cloths draped over both arms. "The wine is boiling," she said.

"Very good, my lady." The maester paused. "Should I call you ser?"

Brienne's eyes darted in Jaime's direction before returning to the maester. "As you like."

"If perhaps you would help get his shirt off . . ."

Jaime was - was he _blushing_? - it was a terrible time to think of their first night together, of Brienne having to save him from his own laces. She, though, appeared to have no reaction other than following instructions, her strong arms lifting Jaime from the pillows again. She'd had to care for him so many times, even back when he should still have been in his prime. It felt as familiar as breathing, to clutch her wiry forearm with his one hand and let his head fall to her shoulder. He thought he imagined the ghost of a kiss on his temple as she tugged his shirt up and off.

Her hand was holding the side of his face again. "Maybe this will help," she murmured. "Lie back."

Podrick came in with the boiled wine as Brienne began to bathe his forehead with a cool, wet cloth. Jaime closed his eyes and pretended he didn't know what was coming next. Nicer to feel the cool on his face, his throat, the back of his neck as she gently lifted his head. 

"Pod, an arm?"

The bed shifted on Jaime's other side, the side where Brienne had slept last night, and he could tell they were both holding him up now. The cloth was dipped again; he heard the water dripping into the bowl as it was wrung out, and then the cool touch was sliding over his shoulders, his chest.

"Might as well, while we're here," Brienne said, close to his face, and he wondered how badly he must need a bath by now. Hopefully not as much as when he'd arrived at Harrenhal. At least he hadn't been rolling in the mud this time.

"Bit of a sting, I'm afraid," the maester said, and Jaime gritted his teeth without opening his eyes. There was pain, but not as much as he'd expected. It might have been all in his head but he even thought he felt an itching, a salutary sort of tingle clearing away the hotness of infection.

The maester was asking Pod if he by chance had a cousin at the Citadel. "I doubt it," Pod said. "Paynes have never been known for being clever."

Considering Tyrion and Bronn - and Tywin - loyal Pod had probably spent his entire adult life being told he was dull as a plank. Jaime would have thought so too, before he saw the boy grown and saw the steel under his stubborn cheerfulness. It could do with a polish, but it was there.

"That's it for now," the maester said just as Jaime had begun to fear that Brienne and Pod would try to bathe him all over. "I want to get some of this salve on them - thank you, my lady - ser - and then we'll get you wrapped up again and see if you can drink that willow bark tea."

"I feel like a child," Jaime said, not really complaining.

"Well, if you're good we'll have them put honey in your tea," Brienne said. He rather hoped they would. Willow bark was as bitter as - as bitter as his thoughts. As bitter as the ashes of King's Landing. As bitter as two vengeful queens urging each other into greater and greater acts of violence.

When the maester and Pod left, Brienne lingered and helped him put his shirt back on. "I have to get to Lady Sansa soon," she warned. Always trying to manage his expectations.

"Of course." He let her tuck him in like an invalid. At least the maester had cleared him to get up and use the chamber pot by himself. He wouldn't be so reliant on her for his most humiliating moments this time. "Do you know what's . . ."

Despite his inability to put words to the question, she seemed to understand. "The rest of the houses are still on their way. I hear Yara Greyjoy landed this morning. It might be a week or two before anything can truly be decided. The Unsullied are - well, they're waiting, at least. They've stopped executing prisoners, although -"

"How many have they left, anyway?"

Her mouth twisted in acknowledgment. "King Jon is trying to rebuild the Gold Cloaks, as more houses arrive with their fighting men. It's difficult for him. Never having even been to the city when it was - as it was."

"Surely my brother, and Sansa -"

"Yes. He has at least ample advisors." She smoothed an invisible wrinkle from the bedclothes. "He truly doesn't want to be king. This council of the nobles - he doesn't mean to put himself forward."

"Who then?"

"I don't know."

"You'll have a say, won't you?" The thought dawned suddenly. "For yourself, not as Lady Sansa's sword. You're the heir of a noble house. You probably ought to speak for the Stormlands, considering your liege lord was elevated from the smithy bare weeks ago."

She looked at him oddly. "Yes - I am the _heir_ of a noble house. I am not the head."

"But you're here, and your father isn't." The truth must have hit him before conscious realization, because he felt the blood draining from his face before the words formed in his mind. Still, he knew before she said it.

"He's on his way."

That was it, then. If infection didn't kill him, maybe the Evenstar would. Unless somehow not only Brienne but also everyone who'd been at Winterfell neglected to mention Jaime bedding his daughter.

"We should speak," he blurted out. "You and I, I mean. Before . . ." What did he even mean? That it should be resolved between them, he supposed. Before - before he'd left her crying in the snow, if there had been no war, no Cersei, he would obviously have married her. Wouldn't he? Oughtn't he to marry her now? But if he went to her father without settling it with her first, she'd break his nose.

"We will speak," she said. He couldn't read her expression. "I have to go now."

"Brienne -"

"He won't be here today, Jaime," she said. "There's time."

"Enough time?"

"Enough for what?"

He rolled his eyes and relied on his old manner. "For me to convince you not to have him kill me."

"I slept beside you," Brienne said. "If I wanted you dead, you would be." Halfway out of the door she turned and gave him an almost-smile. "Rest well."


End file.
